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Home  » News » UCLA shooter Mainak Sarkar an alumnus of IIT Kharagpur

UCLA shooter Mainak Sarkar an alumnus of IIT Kharagpur

Source: PTI
Last updated on: June 03, 2016 11:15 IST
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'William Klug, UCLA professor is not the kind of person when you think of a professor. He is a very sick person. I urge every new student coming to UCLA to stay away from this guy,' Mainak Sarkar had posted on social media. 'He made me really sick. Your enemy is my enemy. But your friend can do a lot more harm. Be careful about whom you trust.'

The gunman who killed a University of California Los Angeles professor was on Thursday identified as his former doctoral student Indian-American Mainak Sarkar, who had accused him of stealing his computer code and giving it to someone else, a media report said.

Sarkar, an alumnus of the Indian Institute of Technology-Kharagpur, shot and killed professor William Klug in a small office in the UCLA before killing himself on Wednesday, the Los Angeles Times reported, citing sources.

Meanwhile, Sarkar had left a "kill list" at his Minnesota home that led authorities to find a woman's body.

When authorities searched Sarkar's Minnesota home, they found a "kill list" with the names of Klug, another UCLA professor and a woman, police chief Charlie Beck said on Thursday.

The woman was found shot dead in her home in a nearby Minnesota town, he said. Beck said he could not release that woman's name. The other professor on the list is safe.

The shooting prompted a complete lockdown of the campus and deployment of hundreds of police officers as well as federal agents. The lockdown was lifted shortly after noon. 

All university classes were cancelled on Wednesday. Some 43,000 students are enrolled at the UCLA campus, according to its website.

Klug, 39, was an associate professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering and had been the target of Sarkar's anger on social media for months, the paper said.

He accused the professor of stealing his computer code and giving it to someone else, it said. 'William Klug, UCLA professor is not the kind of person when you think of a professor. He is a very sick person. I urge every new student coming to UCLA to stay away from this guy,' Sarkar wrote on March 10. 'He made me really sick. Your enemy is my enemy. But your friend can do a lot more harm. Be careful about whom you trust.' 

In his doctoral dissertation, submitted in 2013, Sarkar had expressed his gratitude to Klug for his help and support, the paper said. 'Thank you for being my mentor,' he had then written.

Before enrolling at UCLA, Sarkar earned a master's degree at Stanford University, according to his LinkedIn page. In 2000, he graduated from the Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur, with a degree in aerospace engineering.

He also had a stint as a research assistant at the University of Texas and worked as a software developer. After UCLA, Sarkar worked remotely as an engineering analyst for an Ohio-based rubber company, Endurica LLC, where he worked until August 2014.

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